Friday, June 15, 2018

Some stuff I love

I've been making some positive changes in my life recently, and I wanted to share some things that I love, love, love.

The library: You probably could have already guessed that this would be on the top of things I love. I love the library. I read about 2-3 books a week (depending on how long they are) and there is no reason for me to own that many books. Plus, if I don't like a book, oh well, back to the library it goes. In addition, the library has a ton of cookbooks, the latest bestsellers, Legos, toys, and it's right next to the Farmer's Market. The Stanford library is gorgeous. I can look up the books I want and the call numbers before I go there, so I just head over there when I want a walk. And, I check them out for months! It's so nice.

Spotify: I got this app a while ago, after the "kids" in my lab encouraged me and I love it. The algorithm is so much better than pandora and they have pretty much every song I can think of that I want to listen to. It can store music offline for travel and flights, and it's got pretty much every Disney soundtrack my kid can listen to. It's also got old, old albums that I had when I was a kid (Hot August Night, anyone? Melissa Etheridge Brave and Crazy. Cat Stevens. Tom Petty. the Beatles. So good. Also, all those one-hit-wonders. I'm in heaven. Also tons of classical music for focus. I did pay the $15/month for the premium to get rid of ads, but it's so worth it to me.

Calm: My work has these "BeWell" assessments and I went and did one a couple months ago. I told the lady helping me that I felt overwhelmed and anxious about everything and she told me to meditate 5 minutes a day. I thought that 5 minutes was something I could do, so I did it. My co-worker suggested this Calm app and I really love it. It has a bunch of meditations (most are 10-15 minutes long, but you can do shorter ones). It has guided meditations, or more silence, walking ones, or ones focused on something you might want to improve (anxiety, sleep, relationships, etc). There are even ones for kids. It also has bedtime stories (both for kids and adults) that are designed to help you fall asleep. One of my favorite parts of the app are the Master classes. These are "classes" taught by leading experts on certain topics, such as nutrition, depression, etc. I've listened to almost all of them and I get something out of each one. Plus, each class is about 10min or less, which is a nice bit of time. There are also "music tracks" that can help with focus, sleep, calming, etc. I really like those for when I am working and I can't listen to actual words in music. Most of this app is behind a paywall, but I used it a couple times (maybe for a week?) and they sent me a coupon for 25% off the cost of the app. It's about $60/year ($5/month) but the coupon got it for me for $45/year, which I think was totally worth it.

Bullet Journal: Seriously, I love this thing. I've tried keeping traditional calendars/day planners and I've tried keeping things on my computer calendar, but none of that works. My schedule and my life and my job and my family just do not fit on a traditional calendar. The bullet journal, you just do with it what you want. You don't have to use it every day. You can make huge lists, or just brain dump. You can draw pictures, plan out vacations, make lists of recipes, whatever you want. You can track things monthly (like gratitude, or weight, or whatever). I love this model because I can put all the things I want to do (experiments, questions, housework, school, kid, family vacation, etc.) in the same place. Its been a revolution for me.

Podcasts: As you can tell, I spend a ton of time with my earbuds in. There are a couple podcasts that I have really loved recently: Pod Save America (I mean, of course I love this one. Lovett or Leave it. (I love Jon Lovett, obv). Malcolm Gladwell's Revisionist History (all 3 seasons). No Such Thing as a Fish (OMG, humor, British, random facts - does not get better that that). Honorable Mentions: Atlanta Monster (this could have been so much better, but it is what it is). Fresh Air with Terry Gross is really great if it's a topic I want to hear about. A Killing on the Cape (professionally produced with a predictable ending. A bit of a rough murder mystery). The Moth (sometimes this is super good, and other times I just can't get into it.)

No Facebook: Yeah, this has changed my life. First, I cleared out my friends list (like, all those people from high school that I don't even know? Yeah, they are gone. Just family, actual friends and some of my students.) I check it once a week, maybe? I'm still on IG, which I love, but that's a much more cultivated list of people I dig.

And that, folks, is that. Things that have improved my life for the better :)

Friday, March 23, 2018

The bully in the school

There is a bully at D's school. He's in the class above D, but those two classes combine a lot, so D has to see this kid being mean to the other kids. One kid is bullied so bad that he's literally sick.

Yesterday, this bully threw a block off the play structure and split a kid's head open (not my kid's). The kid had to go to the doctor and get his head glued back together. There was blood everywhere, and my kit thought his friend was going to die. (his words, not mine) The teachers swear the block wasn't thrown on purpose. D was super upset and couldn't sleep last night, understandably.

My kid goes to a high demand, private daycare center on Stanford campus. We pay a shit-ton of money for my kid to go to this school and get a good education and be safe. My question is why the school tolerates this kind of behavior and/or tries to protect the bully? What good could come of that?Why is there not a "zero tolerance" policy for bullying? Why isn't this kid kicked out immediately?

Honestly, the rest of the kids in D's class are good kids. The worst infractions are a lack of listening ears and not napping. Seriously, that's it. The most my kid has been in trouble was during potty-training, he peed outside in the school yard.

Yeah, of course I've emailed admin. They keep setting up appointments with me and then cancelling them at the last minute. Very helpful.


Thursday, March 15, 2018

My kid gets it - why doesn't anyone else?

Yesterday, D participated in the National School Walkout in protest of gun violence. He and his classmates made signs and walked around for 17 minutes. We've been talking a lot about guns - it's sad to have these conversations with your 4 year old. But he made me proud when we had the following conversation:

(Background: I work with an alternatively-abled man, M who is missing the lower part of one of his arms. D has been talking about body parts at school, and asks a lot about this man and how he is able to do all the things we can do)

D: Why can't we give M a new arm?
Me: People can't grow a new arm, and if they make one for M they are really expensive.
D: That's stupid. We should make things like arms really cheap so everyone who needs one can get one. And we should make guns really expensive.

Hit the nail right on the head, son.

Monday, March 12, 2018

Yep, totally behind...

I was lucky to find Wonder Woman at the library so we could check it out. We watched it last week, and you know what? I LOVED IT. I know, I know, lots of people loved it. ButI thought I would tell you why I loved it:

1) The lead is female and she was awesome. I swear I would follow Gal Gadot to the ends of the earth. Also, the cast has many women, amazing women. I loved them all.
2) The director is female and she knows how to make a good movie for everyone.
3) I never really liked Chris Pine, but he was super good in this movie. Also, very cute.
4) The movie has lots of funny parts, which makes the whole "going after the god of war" thing much more enjoyable.
5) The protagonist does not hesitate to try to help, in any way possible. I feel like lots of male superheroes brood, or retreat to their cave or whatever they do. Wonder Woman just f-ing dives in feet first. Also, the fight scenes were UNREAL. I have never seen such amazing sword fighting atop horses - I mean, what?
6) There was romance and it was really well done. None of this superhero bullshit where it has to be all fighting all the time. There was actually a plot.
7) Wonder Woman was my favorite when I was a kid. She made me feel like I could be anything I wanted to be. In fact, I used to spin around in a circle (that's how she changed into Wonder Woman) to change into my alter egos. I don't know what this movie did, but somehow I saw myself in this iteration of Wonder Woman. Somehow she is every woman. And she kicks ass. Also, she doubts herself, doesn't always know the right way, etc. She is amazing.
8) I will watch this film over and over again. But I'm really looking forward to seeing the second installment.
9) Why can't all superhero films have some of these aspects?

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks

Did I tell you I'm writing a novel? Yeah, after reading all those terrible books on Amazon Prime, I decided I can write a story better than some of those. I loved to write stories when I was a kid and I love to read, so it makes perfect sense.
So, I'm doing some research. This includes reading lots of books and observing things like story arcs, plot points, character development, etc. My latests piece of research was Nicholas Sparks' The Lucky One.

This book follows Logan Thibault, a former Marine who had three tours in Iraq. While he was there, he found a photo of a woman. When the photo wasn't claimed, he took it with him and he believed that the photo provided luck for him. He was in a record number of IED attacks and avoided dying on numerous occasions. When he gets back from active duty, he decides to walk across the country to try to find the woman in the picture. Although this story sounds a bit creepy, it's pretty well put together and the Thibault character does not seem to be a mentally deranged stalker. The woman he finds is named Beth, a single mom with a crazy ex-husband. Naturally, Logan and Beth fall in love, the ex-husband loses his mind and the story resolves with the death of a major character, but it's the one you don't mind.

This book was good but not exceptional. The characters were interesting, but I didn't really identify with any of them on any level. It was a nice romance, but, honestly, I could have taken this book or left it. The characters are stereotypical (a war-hardened veteran, a beautiful woman who doesn't know she's beautiful, a manipulative ex-husband, a cute, smart kid). The plot was predictable. It's a good escapist read, but that's all!

Monday, March 5, 2018

Some good books, some bad books

I've been reading a TON lately, mostly to keep myself off of social media. I find that FB and IG generally make me feel horrible, so I've been avoiding them lately. I'd generally like to continue that trend....

Luckily, my big reading habit has been helped by a few things: the discovery of free reading via Amazon prime on my Kindle, the local San Mateo library and the local Stanford library. Among those, I have been able to read about 2-3 books a week for the past several weeks. It's been a good thing. I thought I would tell you about a few that I've read.

America's First Daughter by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie tells the story of Martha Jefferson Randolph, the only surviving daughter of Thomas Jefferson. The novel follows Martha as her mother dies shortly after childbirth and she essentially becomes the mistress of the Jefferson household. The book is apparently based on thousands of letters and original sources and draws an interesting picture of the life of Jefferson's daughter. In her life, she lives in Paris during the French Revolution, is a witness to the dramatic forming of the American government, marries a cousin of hers and has a tumultuous relationship (and 11 surviving children), plays witness to Thomas Jefferson's affair with his slave, Sally Hemmings, and takes on the role of "first lady" in the White House. She lived a rich and varied life, in contrast to the slaves that Jefferson and her relatives kept.  As a review, honestly, I thought this could have been so much better. The imagined dialogue is inane, the characters are fairly two-dimensional and several of the interesting plot points are imagined. With all the intrigue of forming a government and carrying out the American experiment, I would have thought that the authors could have created more interesting scenes, a more cohesive story (with or without the imagined romance) and more conflict addressing the fact that Jefferson wrote, "All men are created equal", except he kept slaves and women certainly were not considered equal. Although we know little about Sally Hemmings (and it's suggested that Martha destroyed any writings by Thomas Jefferson that referred to Hemmings), the authors create a love story between Hemmings and Jefferson. I find that largely unbelievable as Hemmings was a slave and many years younger than Jefferson (Hemmings was about Martha's age). It's well known that slave owners would rape their slaves - why would they not choose this scenario? It's definitely the more likely one, but I am assuming they chose the one they did to continue to white-wash history and not talk about reality during the creation of the US. If you like historical fiction and an easy read, you might like this book. Martha was a very interesting woman, I just think the authors could have done her more justice.

In the light of the garden by Heather Burch: I actually liked this story., although it was a bit cheesy. It was very light and easy to read. It follows Charity, who has just inherited her grandparents' house in Florida. She inherited a ton of money, too, so she decides to move to this sleepy community to start her life over. Her neighbor, Dalton, is a handyman who has moved to the island because he's experienced a dramatic tragedy (his wife and child were killed in a 7-11 robbery - a bit too dramatic, I thought). Anyways, there are some interesting characters, a slightly dramatic plot twist and the two of them end up together, naturally.

Coming Clean by Kimberly Rae Miller. This is a memoir about growing up with parents who are hoarders. This book was well written and interesting to read. It's clear it was therapeutic to write for the author. She talks about her childhood growing up surrounded by stuff - it's enough to make you want to clean your house! She describes not inviting friends over, being different people in the car as a family vs. being at home, and the complete and utter breakdown of a house they owned that literally fell apart because of stuff. I wanted this book to end with them finally cleaning everything out, but it doesn't end that way (of course it doesn't - this is her actual life), but it's interesting nonetheless.

Her Perfect Revengeby Anna Mara. This book is free on Amazon Prime and, honestly, I almost didn't make it through this one. It is billed as "a romantic comedy" and "laugh-out-loud funny". It follows Christina as she starts high school and is bullied by Bill. Fast forward 12 years later, and Christina is still mad about that bullying situation and decides to prank Bill for reasons that are beyond me. Christina barely has a job - she is a freelance photographer yet somehow affords to live in NYC unaided. Bill is a spoiled brat, but the heir to his father's dog food (?) fortune, so he drives fancy cars and does fancy stuff. Christina accidentally crashes her car into his and then Bill convinces her to pretend to be his fiancee so he can keep getting his dad's money. All of the characters are manipulative liars, so in the end they all deserve each other, I suppose. The only thing this author is good at is creating compulsion - I was compelled to find out what happened next so I finished the book but I'm unsure that I'm better for it...

 A Week in Winter by Maeve Binchy. This author was recommended to me because I love Rosamunde Pilcher, so I checked out some books from the library. This book is written about a new character each chapter, which I thought was an interesting way to write a story. The story centers around a new inn on the west coast of Ireland. It's being opened by Chicky Starr, the first character we meet in the book. The rest of the characters are either connected to Chicky in some way, or are connected to the Inn in some way. And each character has a problem that is subsequently solved by their trip to the Inn. It's a cute story with compelling characters, and, honestly, I wanted more to the story when I was finished (I think that is the biggest complement to an author, that you want to keep inhabiting their world).

The Glass Lake by Maeve Binchy. This was a longer book than the previous one, but was a really interesting story. The book centers on Kit, a young girl in the beginning of the book, who lives with her mum and dad and brother in Lough Glass, Ireland. When Kit is 12, her mother goes missing one night and cannot be found. Kit grows into a woman during the course of the book and comes into her own as an adult, discovering the truth about her mother's disappearance. I thought this book was so great. I really enjoyed the story, the characters and the plot twists.

The Return Journey by Maeve Binchy - this is collection of her short stories, which were fine to read. It's nice to have a story without having to wonder what happens next. One of her stories was told entirely in letter form, which I thought was original.

I've got four more that I checked out from the library this past weekend - I will let you know what I think!


Tuesday, February 27, 2018

Random stuff


  • It's been really cold lately. There was snow on the mountains across the bay from us today. 
  • We went to Yosemite for a day and I can't upload pictures because my phone and blogger have stopped cooperating.
  • Yesterday it rained as we were coming in. As we were descending our twisty-turney mountain road, we saw a cop ahead and slowed to a stop. He had pulled someone over. When we could finally pass them, we saw that the person pulled over was driving a forklift truck. Like the ones you see in a warehouse. On a mountain road. With his dog sitting up on his forklift too. It sounds like the beginning of a "You might be a redneck if...." joke...
  • It's been sunny but cold. I think our electric bill will be thru the roof.
  • I've stopped reading the FB and I have to say it makes me pretty pleased. I can't handle the vast majority of the rhetoric in my news feed and I'm unsure why I am friends with the people I have friended. Most of them I do not even know. It would be nice to erase it all and start over :)
  • My cousin will be on The Voice either this week or next. Do you watch that show? I never watched it, but I love my cousin, so I will be watching. I really enjoy the Kelly Clarkson - Alicia Keyes - Blake Shelton banter but Adam Levine seems like kinda a dick. I guess there always has to be one!
  • Tonight, we are getting a Hello Fresh box. My friend Jessica gave us a free one, so we will see if we like it. Alex claims he doesn't like Blue Apron because of all the trash it generates. Here's hoping HF is better because I like the idea of not having to come up with meal ideas sometimes.

Friday, February 16, 2018

Honestly, Haiku Friday

Honestly I just
can't with all the news. Instead
I hug my kid tight.

***

Valentines, he wrote
his name on all twenty four
This is the best age.

***

Today, Chinese New
Year Dragon dance with his friends
Renewal begins.

Wednesday, February 14, 2018

Valentines

Today, D's class had a wee Valentines Day party. It was super cute. He handed out cards to his friends and was super excited to get a little box of Nerds candy from his friend. Then I turn around and he has pulled out another thing from his box and he's chomping on it. It looked weird since it didn't have a wrapper on it...so I ask him what he is eating? A candy, he says. I look closer....

Yeah....

Not a candy....

It's a crayon....

Someone had melted crayons together and poured it into a heart mold.


:)

Monday, February 12, 2018

Some good TV

There are three shows on Amazon that I love and I would watch over and over again. In no particular order:

1) Catastrophe: this is a comedy/drama/sometimes hits too close to home about an American man, Rob Delaney, who meets an Irish woman (Sharon Horgan) in a bar in London. They have a one night stand and she ends up pregnant. The first season follows the couple trying to navigate this complicated situation and each show is more ridiculous than the first. Horgan and Delaney wrote the show and it's absolutely comedy gold. Also, sometimes painful. You know when sometimes art imitates life a little too well? Yeah, that kind of painful. The next two seasons follow the couple as they have kids and go through ups and downs in their marriage, all with a touch of ridiculous comedy. Nearly every line in the show has some type of comedic element to it. I love it. It's so amazing and good. If you are married and/or have kids, this may be totally up your alley. Also, it may piss you off, haha!

2) Good Girls Revolt: This show was so good and it was cancelled, unfortunately, so there is not a chance it will return. However, fantastic nonetheless. This show follows the fictional Patty as she works as a researcher at the fictional News of the World newsmagazine at the end of the 1960s in NYC. There are so many things that I love about this show. Firstly, the cinematography, the costuming, the lighting are so well done. It creates a nostalgia in me because a lot of the decor reminded me of my grandparents' house or my parents' house. Secondly, the acting is phenomenal. Thirdly, the story is about women trying to gain equality and it centers around the women trying to become reporters instead of researchers (being a female reporter at NotW is not allowed). The women bring a lawsuit against the company and that's where the story ends. It's all loosely based on the real women who brought a lawsuit against Newsweek in the late 60s asking for equality in the workplace. The women actually won the lawsuit, but equality in the workplace is still far from here, even in 2018. The show is great and I wish Amazon would recognize that we want to see strong female role models in our entertainment. I guess they will realize that when they actually have female executives...

3) The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel: This just came out and won a bunch of awards and I loved this show so much I hope it comes back. Rachel Brosnahan plays Midge Maisel, a young, upper West Side Jewish Housewife in NYC in 1958. In the first episode, her husband, Joel, leaves her and she discovers her previously unknown talent for stand up comedy. Brosnahan is phenomenal - I literally cannot take my eyes off of her. The entire cast is superb, including Tony Shaloub as her father. The show is written by Amy Sherman-Palladino, who was creator of the Gilmore Girls, still one of my favorite shows, so I guess it's no surprise I would love this one too. I hope they renew it. I can't wait to see where Mrs. Maisel goes.

Friday, February 9, 2018

Home Again

In case you didn't know, I am a huge Reese Witherspoon fan, so I was excited to see her latest rom-com, Home Again on the interwebs. I had some high expectations for this movie, and I have to say, it did not disappoint. Firstly, I have been home most of this week with some sort of head cold, so this was a perfect movie for hanging on the couch. Secondly, the NYTimes recently published an article about how Witherspoon is so smart because she came up with her own movie production company (all on her own! With her own head! AMAZING!) that wants to focus on making more movies for women, by women, etc. I'm not sure why the NYTimes felt that this was a revolutionary idea, because, DUH. Of course women want movies made for them. And of course women tell good stories, and can direct and act and all that jazz. I mean, really people. 
ANYways, his movie was written and directed by a woman (Hallie Meyers-Shyerand stars some wonderful actresses like Reese Witherspoon and Candace Bergen. The story is that Alice (Witherspoon) has just separated from her husband and moved back to CA from NY. She has two daughters and she is the daughter of a famous movie director (who is now dead) and her mother (Bergen) is a famous actress from her father's movies. The movie begins with Alice dropping her kids off at school and being just generally unsure about her life's direction. Witherspoon nails her role, man she is such a good actress.
It happens to be Alice's 40th birthday, so she sends the girls to Grandma's and she goes out with her friends to live it up. She ends up drinking too much and meeting some young guys and they end up partying all night long. These scenes were so amazing to me. Firstly, when a mom lets loose, sometimes she totally lets loose, especially with lots of stress in life. Secondly, moms miss going out and having lots of fun and sleeping in and all those things we did as kids, and this movie captured these sentiments so well. And, of course, we all want to be attractive to younger people, so this whole part was so satisfying to me. 
Of course, all comes crashing down the next day when her kids show up and the young guys are actually trying to get a film made but have just lost their place to live. The movie ends up being about kismet (being in the right place at the right time), and about the unexpected roles people can play in our lives. It's also about being a mom and going through a life transition and just being a woman, you know?
My favorite part of the movie (this may be a spoiler, I'm not sure) is after Alice sleeps with one of the guys (Harry), she asks him to come to a dinner party with her. He tells her he will meet her there, but ends up standing her up. She's upset, obviously, and the next day basically tells him that she doesn't want to be in a relationship where she is wondering whether the other person will show up or not. She is "too good" (meaning she knows her self worth) to put up with that. It is a remarkable scene because never, ever in rom-coms, do women stand up for themselves. Women always seem to be the last to know their true feelings, the last to understand the situation, the last to realize all of the elements. And in this movie, man, Alice knows exactly what she wants. And she gets there through the movie and through the people she brings into her life.
I loved this movie. I really, really hope this means there will be more movies made of strong female characters, lead characters, who know what they want out of life and who grab life by the balls. I also hope this leads to more mom characters who are complex and interesting and not just "mom" and also more stories about unexpected roles people can play in our lives. These stories are by far more interesting than the less complex rom-coms of the past.

Monday, February 5, 2018

Philly

After I graduated college, I got a job at Baxter in Thousand Oaks, CA. I worked in drug manufacturing and I worked 4-10s, which meant I worked Sunday - Wednesday, noon-10pm every week. I worked with some really fantastic people and, for a while, I really loved that job. My shift lead was Nicky, a late-twenties body builder and ex-football player. He was a big, lovable lug and he was a great boss.  We worked on Sundays, and all the guys followed football, so I decided to learn about football too. In our downtime, Nicky taught us a lot about the game and the teams. He told me to choose a team to follow. He followed the Miami Dolphins. I picked the Philadelphia Eagles because I liked their logo and I had been to Philly a couple times and I loved it. Following the team taught me more about the game and it was always awesome when the Eagles would win and the Dolphins would lose. It made me feel like I had picked a good team.

In 2003, I moved to Philly and football became a weekly interest, especially when the fall cold came and days got shorter and it was harder and harder to stay outside. The Eagles had been my team and it was so fun to get together with my friends from grad school and watch Sunday or Monday night football. One friend, Marcus, was obsessed with the Eagles. He would have dozens of people over to his house on Sundays and he projected the games on a huge wall in his house. They would mute the game cast from the national TV station and they would play the local radio station instead. The vast majority of national TV broadcasts were super negative about the Eagles, while the local radio was always singing their praises (or recalling super random and obscure sports trivia about the team). Marcus would get so worked up, screaming and yelling at the TV. It was great fun.

When I first moved to Philly, I went to the Wawa (like 7/11) to get some groceries. I remember the clerk saying, "Go Iggles" instead of "Thanks" or "Have a good one". The city literally stops when there is an Eagles game. Nobody on the streets. The cabs are empty. The bars are filled with screaming spectators. When you walk past houses, you can hear the game. You can hear people cheering or screaming. If you ever wanted to start a conversation with someone you didn't know, you could always say, "How about them Iggles?" (or Phils, or Flyers, or Sixers). That's how I got to know so many of the people I worked with at Penn. We always knew what was going on with the home teams and it made me a lot of friends, for sure.

In bars, it was normal for an Eagles cheer to break out, anytime, anywhere. (Bar singalong were also common - I miss those...). You could hear Eagles cheers at any sports games, not just Eagles games. I remember hearing them at Phils games.

But Philly has always been an underdog. A ragtag group of boys. Coaches who always made the wrong call. Quarterbacks who could only take us so far. And I think, to a certain extent, we liked being the underdog. You can't expect much and we just might surprise you (a bit like Philly itself). It shows we are tough. We can take the punches. We are loyal, not fickle. We stay with a team for life. It's part of our culture.

Last night was a triumph. It was honestly the most beautiful football I've ever seen Philly play (offensively). Foles was on. The coaches were calling the right plays. And the offense was on fire. And Brady was not. The Pats fell, but not without a good fight. So many superbowls are one sided and super boring. This game (for many reasons) had me on the edge of my seat. I am thrilled the Eagles brought the Lombardi trophy home. Philly deserves it. I am so proud of my adopted city and my team. And you can bet my family will be wearing some Eagles gear to represent! I wish I could have walked Broad St last night with the rest of the city. I did it when the Phils took the World Series, and I'd be proud to do it again. And I'd love to see the parade. Philly always does a parade right.

Suffice it to say, it was the best superbowl ever. Go Eagles!

Fly Eagles, Fly
On the road to victory
Fight, Eagles, Fight
For a touchdown 1,2,3
Hit em low,
hit em high
and watch those eagles fly
E-A-G-L-E-S, Eagles!

Tuesday, January 30, 2018

Staying Stylish

Look, don't judge me. I'm 40. I'm allowed to read what I want, OK? Also, I've been traveling and job interviewing lately, so a mindless book on the Kindle is just about all I can handle.
Haha!
I downloaded Staying Stylish by Candace Cameron Bure (yes, that's DJ from Full House) for the discount price of $1.99 on the Kindle. I read it in less than a day. It turns out that Candace doesn't really have a lot to say in terms of staying stylish, so I thought I would run down what she tells you just in case you wanted to know.

  • Be true to your sense of style (seems obvious, no?)
  • Invest in pieces that are timeless so you will get lots of wear out of them
  • Try to find balance in your outfit (e.g. if shoulders bare, legs are covered; if shirt is loud, jewelry is muted, etc)
  • Try to get things tailored so they fit better
  • Try on lots of sizes and styles - don't limit yourself to just one
  • Invest in outerwear - it can make or break your outfit.
  • Organize your closet so you can easily pick out things that work together. 
  • When packing for a trip, roll your clothing up and choose one color palette and stick to it. 
  • She recommends skin care products that cost at least $200 so there's not a chance that's accessible to anyone
  • She tells you how she does her makeup
  • You should not be afraid to try different hairstyles or hair colors.
  • She tells you how she does her ponytail (I found this interesting...)
  • She tells you about her favorite foods and snacks
  • She gives you a fairly intense workout circuit
  • She tells you to pray and write in a journal, read,  practice gratitude, take time for yourself and spend time alone.
Honestly, this book was super simple and sort of interesting which is just what I wanted it to be when I downloaded it. I don't read a lot of fashion magazines because, honestly, they are not written for a 40 year old scientist mom. I don't shop a ton and I don't spend a lot of time on myself and it was nice to be reminded that maybe I should stop and spend some time on myself. Anyways, it was an interesting read if you're into this kind of thing. Plus, I really like CCB for reasons that I can't really articulate so there's that.

Jane Austen

For the last year or more I have been reading works by Jane Austen. Faithful readers of this blog will know that I use my brain extensively at work, requiring more gentle and easy reading at night. I took many Austen works from my mom's library and have been slowly working my way through them and I thought I would tell you what I think.

Northanger Abbey: I just finished this book and I really enjoyed it. It follows Catherine, a young girl of 17 who enjoys "fiction" - as far as I can tell, this means Victorian novels. She lives a somewhat normal life, but injects aspects of this fiction into her life using her imagination. She is lucky enough to be invited to vacation in Bath with Mr. and Mrs. Allen, where she meets several friends, including Isabella, Eleanor Tilney and Henry Tilney . Of course, she falls for Henry, and is invited to stay with the Tilneys for a period of time. A period of drama ensues, partially due to Catherine's imagination, and the story ends with our heroine finally landing the man of her dreams. I liked this book for its ease of reading, but I have to say that Catherine didn't hold much interest to me. She didn't seem to have much personality or opinions, and the most interesting thing about her was the people she surrounded herself with.

Emma: I loved this book. Emma is spunky and funny and ridiculously snobbish and is always trying to mess with people's lives. Emma lives with her hypochondriac father in a giant mansion overlooking the town. She is by far the most clever of the people in the town and she thinks, therefore, that she must help them with her cleverness. She sets out to (disastrously) find a mate for her "dear friend" Harriett, she decides she must be in love with a town newcomer, Frank, and she completely ignores that she is actually in love with Mr. Knightley, a man who has been a constant companion for her family. This book is funny, entertaining, and completely ridiculous because our heroine does not even have a clue of her own feelings.

Masnfield Park: This book I thought was so-so. Fanny Price is one of many children and is sent to live with her very rich aunt and uncle because her family can no longer afford so many kids. She is sent there at age 10 to be what? A servant? Sort of. A companion? Maybe? Definitely inferior. She turns out to be the moral compass for the whole book, resisting temptations of intrigue, sex, and general naughtiness. My only problem with this book was the resolution. She falls in love with Edmund, her cousin, but he does not return her affections. At the conclusion of the book, she and Edmund are finally together, but the actual climax of the book does not revolve around this. Most of her books, the climax involves conversations among characters, while, this book just involves a third person narration telling the reader what happens. Needless to say, I did enjoy this book, just perhaps less than the other. In addition, there is much about slavery (and apparently the name Mansfield would have been synonymous with abolition) but I don't know much about English history so I will leave that to the actual proper book reviewers.

Pride and Prejudice: Of course, the most popular of the books, Elizabeth meets obnoxious and snobby Mr. Darcy and proceeds to contradict him and challenge him to the point of his falling in love with her. One of my favorite Austen books, I have now read this twice and each time was most enjoyable. I love a ballsy heroine, especially one who knows what she wants and Austen absolutely provides in this book.

I have yet to read Sense and Sensibility or Persuasion but I possess them both. I will let you know what I think when I read them!